It was to the beat of Welsh drums that the RNLI Lifeboat led Ajax and 13 other boats out of the harbour to the start line of the Three Peaks Yacht Race, while several hundred spectators watched the spectacle from across the broad Barmouth sands.
The Three Peaks is the original...

Picture the scene. It is the middle of the night, and, just off the southwest coast of Scotland, a lone yacht is struggling through the waves. The wind is a steady Beaufort Force 7; in the United States, that is when the Coastguard issues a small craft warning; in Canada...